Refrigerator Door Configuration

ABSTRACT

Disclosed herein is a refrigerator system that comprises an insulated housing that when combined with at least two insulated doors creates a refrigeration compartment, a first insulated door is pivotally coupled to the refrigeration compartment and a second insulated door is slidably attached to the refrigeration compartment, wherein the first insulated door and the second insulated door create a seal when closed with the refrigeration compartment; and wherein the second insulated door has a height to width ratio of greater than one to one and the second insulated door is the full height of the at least one aperture.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to refrigerator compartments and more specifically to one vertical drawer that is designed to slide in and out of the refrigerator, thereby providing access to at least one shelf of the vertical drawer.

2. Introduction

Refrigerators are a common household appliance and are also commonly used in many commercial and industrial applications. Many designs have traditionally been contemplated to make the refrigerator both more aesthetically desirable and more functionally efficient. One of the consequences of this functional efficiency has been many design considerations to decrease power consumption while providing increased ease of use.

One such early example of these considerations is U.S. Pat. No. 2,711,944 by George W. Meek and Sidney Spielman that was granted on Jun. 28, 1955. The '944 patent deals with a refrigerator that has a primary horizontal drawer and a secondary horizontal drawer that could be beneficial in accessing goods stored in the refrigerator. Furthermore, the traditional design has been consistently updated with new design features added even as recently as 2008. U.S. Pat. No. 7,387,351 was issued on Jun. 17, 2008 to Jeong-man Nam and deals with a storage device that has an improvement of the horizontal drawer disclosed in the '944 patent. Namely it has a new latch that has to be released to open the drawer and also offers a removable storage bin within the drawer. Another improvement that has been recently patented is the use of a horizontal pull out drawer in conjunction with a traditionally used swinging main refrigerator door. This is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,447,083 that was granted to Don Chapetta and Samir Atalla on Sep. 10, 2002. Noticeably absent from all these design considerations, however, is the use of a vertical compartment that is operably designed to slide out of the refrigerator in conjunction with the traditional swinging refrigerator door.

Also contemplated in the prior art are more creative ways of dealing with problems of accessing hard to locate items in the back of a refrigerator or to conserve energy while opening the doors. One such product is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,123,130 to Lillian Locke that was granted on Oct. 31, 1978. The '130 patent discloses a design for a refrigerator that contains rotatable shelves within the refrigerator thereby providing the ability to access all the contents of the refrigerator easier than is possible with the traditional swing open door. Also contained in the '130 is an auxiliary door on a side of the refrigerator different from the main door, allowing for further access to the main compartment of the refrigerator. Another attempt to improve the traditional swing out refrigerator door is U.S. Pat. No. 1,275,511 to James Welch that was granted on Aug. 13, 1918. The '511 patent deals with a traditional refrigerator swing out door that has two smaller swing out drawers within the main door. This purportedly decreases the power consumption of the refrigerator due to the need to only open a smaller compartment rather than the whole door. Finally, William Gomolka designed a refrigerator that included in the main traditional swing out door of a refrigerator multiple smaller drawers that can each be pulled out without opening the main door. By only opening a small drawer that is a part of the larger traditional swing open door, energy consumption would once again be decreased based on the decreased heat transfer allowed by the smaller opening. However, none of these solutions deals with at least a single vertical door positioned next to the main swing out door. Rather, these prior art solutions deal with adding smaller drawers to the single main door of a refrigerator, or using a single horizontal door as the main door to the refrigerator. However, most of these designs fail to take advantage of the full height and depth of the refrigeration compartment. A single door that is the full height yet only a small portion of the width of main compartment will allow the user to realize usage of the full height and depth of the refrigerator while still allowing the user to realize power savings by only opening a small portion of the main compartment.

Accordingly, what is needed in the art is an improved way for opening the door of a refrigerator so that a broader portion of the main compartment can be used while still realizing the energy savings that are contemplated by other designs.

SUMMARY

Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The features and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instruments and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. These and other features of the present invention will become more fully apparent from the following description and appended claims, or may be learned by the practice of the invention as set forth herein.

Disclosed is a design for a refrigerator door that allows for the use of the entire height of the refrigeration compartment while still allowing for the realization of the energy savings that is important to users of these appliances. The design involves a telescoping vertical door that is the full height of the refrigerator compartment and is a separate door from the main traditional swinging refrigerator door. This allows the access to a few commonly used items without having to open the main door or any part thereof.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In order to describe the manner in which the above-recited and other advantages and features of the invention can be obtained, a more particular description of the invention briefly described above will be rendered by reference to specific embodiments thereof which are illustrated in the appended drawings. Understanding that these drawings depict only exemplary embodiments of the invention and are not therefore to be considered to be limiting of its scope, the invention will be described and explained with additional specificity and detail through the use of the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates a prospective view of a refrigerator with closed doors;

FIG. 2 illustrates a prospective view of a refrigerator with the traditional swinging door open;

FIG. 3 illustrates a prospective view of a refrigerator with the second door open that is pulled out of the refrigerator; and

FIG. 4 illustrates a further embodiment with the hinge of the swinging door in the middle of the refrigerator.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Various embodiments of the invention are discussed in detail below. While specific implementations are discussed, it should be understood that this is done for illustration purposes only. A person skilled in the relevant art will recognize that other components and configurations may be used without parting from the spirit and scope of the invention.

FIG. 1 illustrates one exemplary embodiment of the present application, a refrigerator having two doors 100 and 200 that are closed. The insulated housing 300 can be made of any standard material which is typically used to construct a refrigerator, for instance stainless steel. The walls of the insulated housing 300 are insulated with appropriate material to maintain the cold temperatures of a typical refrigerator. The doors 100, 200 may be opened by use of the handles 102 and 202 respectively that are disposed on the front of the respective doors. In the depicted embodiment door 200 is attached to the insulated housing 300 at the hinges 204 and 206 which allow the door to rotate about the axis created between the two hinges.

FIG. 2 further illustrates an exemplary embodiment when the door 200 is opened, the compartment 310, which is created by the insulated housing and the door, is exposed. This is depicted in FIG. 2 where the standard swinging refrigerator door is opened to expose the inside of the appliance. In this embodiment this would be where the user stores many of the items used infrequently throughout the day and is where shelves are typically disposed. Items that can be frequently used can be stored in shelves associated with door 100. This is both a matter of convenience and energy conservation. When opening the door 200, a there will be significant energy loss in the form of refrigerated air escaping from a much larger opening than the opening associated with door 100.

FIG. 3 then shows an exemplary embodiment with the second door 100 open and partially extended. The door slides out from housing 300 and is supported by the support members 120, 122, 124, and 126. These support members 120, 122, 124, and 126 can accommodate for example a wheel and rail system where the wheels roll along the rail and the rail guides the direction of movement and provides support, another example would be using a bearing system to accommodate movement up and down the rail, and a skilled artisan would appreciate that there are many other appropriate mechanisms to use that can support a controlled ingress and egress of movement from the housing 300. A further advantage is the use of shelves that are contained within the second door 100 that are exposed when the door is pulled out by the user. The shelves 130, 132 can are an exemplary number and the skilled artisan can appreciate that more or less shelves can be used. These shelves can be useful for goods that are frequently retrieved from within the refrigerator, for example milk or soft drink bottles to name 2 of many. This small opening in the housing that is created by only opening the smaller door 100 allows for less wasted energy due to the decreased heat transfer allowed by the smaller opening. Further, it is convenient since by opening the door, the shelves are exposed, thereby giving the user an effective reach to what would normally be the back of the refrigerator without any extra effort. Moreover, when the shelves are fully exposed, they can be loadable from both sides of the door 100. This can facilitate the loading of those shelves with groceries, for example, when the traditional swing out door 200 is open and the door 100 is kept closed.

It will further be explained by reference to FIG. 3, that when the second door 100 slides out away from the housing it does so by moving in the y-plane as described by the Cartesian coordinates included in that figure. Moreover, when the claims and specification describe a height, it should be clear from FIG. 3 that this is with reference to the z-plane. Finally, when a height to width ratio is discussed it should be with reference to the height in the z-plane compared to the width in the x-plane. Therefore, if the insulated housing is 36 inches tall and the door 100 is 12 inches wide, it would give a height to width ratio of 3:1, since the door is the same height as the insulated housing.

Still another exemplary embodiment is shown in FIG. 4. In FIG. 4, the hinges, 204 and 206 are located on the outer edge of the insulated housing rather than between the two outer edges as depicted in FIG. 1. This allows the door, 200, to swing out in the traditional fashion as described for FIG. 1, the rotation in FIG. 4 is just in the opposite direction. This has some advantages of allowing fuller access to the compartment 310, as well as the aesthetic property of putting the handles, 102 and 202, in the center of the refrigerator.

For refrigerators to function properly they need to seal the connection between the door and the insulated housing. This can be accomplished in many known ways, including rubber gaskets or some other form of insulation that allows the doors to temporarily seal to the insulated housing and thereby preventing cold air from leaking when the doors are closed.

Finally, it should be obvious from the present specification that the examples given are merely exemplary and are not limiting. In this vain it should be mentioned that the refrigerator as is commonly constructed for residential and commercial applications will typically contain a freezer compartment. There is nothing contained herein to prevent the addition of a second compartment above or below the refrigerator compartment and there is nothing preventing the freezer compartment from being similarly configured. Also contemplated within the specification can be a refrigerator with more than one door that can slide out from the refrigerator compartment. These can be placed in any number or configuration as seen fit by a person of skill in the art.

The various embodiments described above are provided by way of illustration only and should not be construed to limit the invention. Those skilled in the art will readily recognize various modifications and changes that may be made to the present invention without following the example embodiments and applications illustrated and described herein, and without departing from the true spirit and scope of the present invention. 

We claim:
 1. A refrigerator comprising: an insulated housing; a first insulated door pivotally coupled to the insulated housing; a second insulated door slidably coupled to the support members that are coupled to the insulated housing, wherein the first insulated door and the second insulated door are removably connected about an aperture formed by the insulated housing, which thereby forms an enclosed compartment; wherein the second insulated door has a height to width ratio of greater than one to one and the second insulated door is the full height of the at least one aperture.
 2. The refrigerator of claim 1 further comprising height to width ration of greater than three to one.
 3. The refrigerator of claim 1 further comprising the hinges attaching the first insulated door to the insulated housing is located between the edges of the insulated housing.
 4. The refrigerator of claim 1 further comprising the hinges attaching the first insulated door to the insulated housing are located at one edge of the insulated housing.
 5. The refrigerator of claim 1 wherein in the telescoping attachments is a wheel and rail system, a bearing system, or an air shock system. 